1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for manufacturing extruded farinaceous snack products.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE BACKGROUND ART
Extruded snack food products, including puffed snack products, are popular consumer items for which there exists a great demand. Puffed snack products are made from a mixture comprised of one or more cereal meals and/or flours, water, oil and other ingredients. The mixture is subjected to high temperature, pressure, and shear in a cooking extruder such that the mixture will "puff" or expand upon reaching atmospheric pressure after extrusion. The extrudate is then cut to form collets and fried or baked to reduce the aqueous moisture content of the collets to about 2 weight percent or less, thereby providing a crisp product that is shelf stable. The collets are usually flavored after baking or frying by being coated with seasoning.
Other popular snack foods, such as potato chips, are produced using raw whole potatoes as a starting material.
Elongate potato "sticks" or "shoestrings" formed from strips of raw, whole potatoes that are fried to a shelf-stabled moisture content also are known in the art, see, e.g., Sijbring U.S. Pat. No. 3,687,679.
Snack products that are produced using raw whole vegetables as a starting material generally are more expensive than extruded snack products due to the high cost of the raw materials and the expense involved in cutting raw vegetables into snack-sized pieces. However, it has heretofore not been possible to produce an extruded snack product having a similar appearance and flavor, color and texture attributes as snack products formed from pieces of raw, whole vegetables.
There remains a need in the art for processes for preparing improved extruded snack products.